Eleventh Grade Burns(66)

Otis led Vlad to the door, looking more troubled with every step he took. “Nelly...” he said as he opened the door, turning back to her with an anxious step.

She looked up, blinking disappointed tears away, but didn’t speak.

“I love you.” Otis’s tone was brimming with meaning.

Vlad paused midstep and looked over at his aunt. A small smile found her lips. “I love you too, Otis.”

Vlad was pretty sure that was the first time that either of them had admitted it. It was sweet and wonderful, and Vlad could barely contain his hopes that this would mean they really would be a family one day... if they weren’t already.

They exchanged quiet smiles for a long time, until Vlad tugged Otis’s sleeve, reminding him of Vikas’s silent call. Once he and Otis were in the car, Vlad turned to his uncle. “Vikas sounded scared.”

“More than that, he sounded as if he were in anguish. Buckle up. I’m going to drive fast.”

Otis backed out of the driveway faster than he ever had and before Vlad knew it, they were speeding through Bathory, barely stopping at stop signs. Not for the first time, Vlad wished they could use their vampire speed out in the open. Finally, Otis parked at the curb and they exited the car. Vlad followed his uncle’s lead around the house to the backyard, where they found Vikas digging near the rosebushes.

He was standing at the bottom of a very deep, very wide hole, slamming a shovel into the frozen earth with a chink and tossing piles of dirt next to the hole. Occasionally, a brown, roseless thorn would catch his skin and tear it open, but his wounds healed immediately and he didn’t seem to notice the thorns at all. Nor did he seem to notice Vlad or Otis, who were standing by the hole, looking very confused. Otis crouched down and placed a caring hand on Vikas’s shoulder. Vikas threw it off and muttered, “Help me.”

Otis furrowed his brow. “Vikas, what’s happened?”

“Help me!” As he yelled, he threw an extra shovel to Otis, who caught it just before it would have hit him. Without another word, Otis removed his jacket, handed it to Vlad, and dropped into the hole, then began digging.

Vlad watched them dig for an hour, all the while wondering what they were digging for. Then the realization hit him and he spoke, his words quiet in the too-quiet night. “It’s a grave.”

Otis shot Vlad a look, then seemed to realize he was right. They both looked at Vikas, who’d finished digging at last and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. His haunted eyes moved to a lump in the shadows near the house. The lump was hastily wrapped in heavy canvas, but Vlad spied a lock of hair sticking out at one end. With a gasp, his hand found his mouth. He would’ve recognized that hair anywhere. “Oh my god ... Tristian.”

When Vlad flicked his gaze back to Vikas, he saw Vikas’s shoulders slump and his moist eyes drop to the hole he and Otis were standing in. “He left several hours ago to retrieve household supplies from the store. When he didn’t come back right away, I contacted him telepathically. His response was weak, muffled, his thoughts clouded. Then everything went black, and the pain ... the pain...”

Vlad furrowed his brow. He knew that pain. He’d been in Jasik’s mind when his life had ended. The experience had scarred him. And Jasik was virtually a stranger to him; he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have been inside his drudge’s mind, Henry’s mind, when he died. Losing a drudge was bad enough, but witnessing it helplessly from inside his skull ... what an unimaginable nightmare.

Otis climbed from Tristian’s grave and reached his hand down to help Vikas out as well. It was only then that Vlad realized there was anything odd about this scene at all. He frowned. “Why a grave, Vikas? Why not a pyre?”

Vikas spoke through tears. “Tristian was a good drudge, Mahlyenki Dyavol, but he was human. We cannot honor him the way that we honor vampirekind.”

Together, the three of them laid Tristian to rest in the earth. Vlad thought about asking if they should call the police, but he was pretty sure that would bring about an amount of trouble that they just didn’t need right now. Besides, they already knew who did it, even though they couldn’t really prove it. The Slayer Society. Maybe one slayer in particular.

Actually, there was no “maybe about it. Joss had murdered Tristian. That much was clear by the open wound on Tristian’s chest. But what Vlad wanted to know was why?

Once the earth was restored, Vikas said, “We should act immediately.”